Arrangement in and relating to machines for manufacturing carton blanks

ABSTRACT

An arrangement in machines for manufacturing carton blanks, said machines being of the type in which the carton sheets are fed intermittently therethrough and are passed from a magazine to a conveying means by means of a reciprocating feed means, wherein the feed means are individually journalled on a support surface and constructed in he form of a feed stand and provided with means by which the feed means can be quickly and reliably adjusted to the different sizes of carton sheet material passing through the machine.

United States Patent Carlsson [54] ARRANGEMENT IN AND RELATING TO MACHINES FOR MANUFACTURING CARTON BLANKS [72] Inventor: Stig Martin Carlsson, Orebro, Sweden [73] Assignee: Sunds Akliebolag, Sundsvall, Sweden [22] Filed: June 18, 1970 21 Appl. No.: 47,329

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data June 27, 1969 Sweden ..9175/69 [52] US. Cl ..271/44 [51] Int. Cl..... ...B65h 1/06 [451 Apr. 4, 1972 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS Primary Examiner-Richard E. Aegerter Attorney-Pierce, Scheffler & Parker [5 7] ABSTRACT An arrangement in machines for manufacturing carton blanks, said machines being of the type in which the carton sheets are fed intermittently therethrough and are passed from a magazine to a conveying means by means of a reciprocating feed means, wherein the feed means are individually journalled on a support surface and constructed in he form of a feed stand and provided with means by which the feed means [58] Field of Search ..271/44 can be quickly and reliably adjusted to the different shes of carton sheet material passing through the machine.

4 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures A i l L 2 3 9' "flail f L 11 -14 I3 26 2L 5 -20 1 9 4 i I 1 F C1 ARRANGEMENT IN AND RELATING TO MACHINES FOR MANUFACTURING CARTON BLANKS The present invention relates to an arrangement in machines of the type preferably intended for manufacturing carton blanks of corrugated cardboard or like material. Such machines may consist of presses, slotting and/or punching machines, panel closing machines or a combination of these different types of basic machines. More particularly, the invention relates to machines of the type referred to with which the flow of carton blanks is passed intermittently through the machine, and with which the carton blanks are passed from a magazine to a conveying means or to a processing station by means of a reciprocating feed means of the so-called kicker type. The primary object of the present invention is to provide a substantially improved type of such feed means, primarily with respect to the ease and speed by which adjustments can be made thereto. Another object of the invention is to provide a feed means of small moving mass, for the purpose of obtaining when operating at high speeds the smallest possible mass forces during the reciprocating movement of the feed means.

Reciprocating feed means known to the art generally consist of two spaced apart slide structures which are synchronously driven from, for example, a crank mechanism. Arranged at right angles to the-direction of movement of the slides and connected thereto is a feed bar whose length is substantially the same as the length of the largest sheet of carton material for which the machine is intended. The feed bar is arranged for movement on the slides, to enable it to be adjusted to different sizes of carton blanks, in a direction coinciding with the direction of movement of the slides. Arranged on the feed bar is a number of resilient feed teeth, adapted to carry with them the carton blanks during the reciprocating movement of the feed means.

The feed bar works beneath a stack of sheets of carton material placed on a magazine, forming front and rear supports, sheet support means, of which the front support is stationary and the rear support is movable in a direction away from or towards the front support, for adjusting the magazine to the size of the sheet of carton material. In order to adjust the magazine to the size of the carton sheets being worked, it is first necessary to move the feed bar on its slides and then adjust the position of the rear sheet support means on its stationary supporting surface. This task is relatively complicated and time consuming and presents a considerable disadvantage, particularly when the machine consists of a combination of machines as aforementioned.

Another disadvantage associated with this type of feed means is that the slides supporting the feed bar must be relatively long, in order to permit the arrangement to be adjusted to carton sheets of varying sizes, which in turn results in high movable masses with related mass forces. As an example, it can be mentioned that a common variation in sheet size extends from 250 to 1,100 mm, which means that the movable slide must have a smallest length of about 950l,000 mm. By way of comparison, an embodiment according to the present invention requires a slide length of only about 200 mm. Furthermore, an embodiment according to the conventional system for the aforementioned range of size variation has a moving mass of 30 kg., while a corresponding embodiment constructed in accordance with the present invention produces a moving mass of about 6 kg.

A feed means constructed in accordance with the present invention eliminates the above mentioned disadvantages associated with known feed means of the type referred to, partly because the long movable slides and the feed bar are replaced with short slides for each separate feed tooth, and partly because said slides and their drive mechanism are combined together with the rear sheet support means into one unit which can be adjusted towards and away from the stationary front sheet support means.

The arrangement of the present invention is mainly characterized by the special features disclosed in the accompanying claims.

The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the accompanying drawing, in which,

FIG. 1 illustrates partly in section a side view of a machine comprising a part of a combined processing machine,

FIG. 2 is a detailed view in enlarged scale of a feed tooth, and

FIG. 3 is a view, partly in section, seen along the line A-A in FIG. 2.

The reference numeral 1 identifies a complete feed unit for a combined machine adapted to produce carton blanks of, for example, corrugated cardboard. In addition to the feed unit, the machine also includes such units as pressing, punching, slotting and folding units.

The direction in which the carton sheets move through the machine is shown by the arrow 2, and the words front and forward are used hereinafter to indicate parts positioned in the directions of the arrow.

The machine includes a magazine for receiving a stack 3 of carton sheets 4. The magazine consists of a lower support beam 5, supporting the stack of sheets 3, at the front end thereof a front support or abutment 6 stationarily arranged in the working direction of the machine, and a rear abutment 7 mounted on a holder 8. The holder 8 is, in turn, arranged on a table or platform 9, which is attached by means of a holder 10 to a cross beam 11 extending across the width of the machine at right angles to the direction in which the carton sheets pass therethrough. The cross beam 11 is connected on the drive side of the machine to a gear box 12, which is suspended in a slide guide structure on the upper surface 1' of the machine frame 1. The cross beam 11 is connected in a corresponding manner on the operating side of the machine to a slide guide structure which is suspended on the upper surface 11 of the frame side (not shown). On the inside of each side of the frame 1 is a rack 13, which cooperates with gear wheels 14 united by a shaft 15. Connected to the slide guide structure on the drive side of the machine is a support nut (not shown) which cooperates with a setting screw (not shown) driven by a motor for adjusting the gear box 12, the cross beam 11, the holder 10 and the table 9 attached to said beam, and the sheet support means 8, 7/ in a direction towards or away from the front sheet support means 6.

Arranged in the gear box 12 is a mechanism of known construction for imparting a reciprocatory movement to a rocker shaft 16 having rocker arms 17 arranged thereon. The gear box 12 is driven by a keyed shaft 18 which is connected by means of a coupling 19 to an angle shaft 20, the journal pin 21 of which is connected to the main drive mechanism of the pertinent machine, the manner in which said pin 21 is connected not being shown in the drawings. Arranged on an output shaft (not shown) is a sprocket wheel 22 which drives, via a chain transmission (not shown), feed rollers 23, 24 and conveyor rollers 25, 26 for conveying the carton sheet. To the roller 26 there may be connected a conveying belt 27 for conveying the sheets.

Arranged on the table 9 are slide plates 28, 29 (FIGS. 2, 3) preferably made of non-metallic material having a low coefficient of friction. Mounted between the plates 28, 29 are parallelepipedic slide pieces 30 having cylindrical pins 31 which, by means of bushings 32, have articulated connection with fore ends of links 33; which support feed means, suitably in the form of teeth 34, which may comprise resilient elements, suitably leaf springs. At their rear ends the links 33 have articulated connection by pins 35, with the upper end 36 of the rocker arm 17.

In comparison with machines previously known to the art the aforedescribed embodiment greatly simplifies the readjustment of the machine for one sheet size to another in.

Because the rear sheet support means 7 always occupies a free position in relation to the rear turn position of the feed means 34 and because these members are connected together to form one unit, it is only necessary to make one adjustment, which, furthermore, can be effected in a very simple manner by means of the not shown motor-driven setting screw. The

rear turn position of the reciprocating feed means 34, seen in the feed direction, is substantially constant and is situated from about 3 to about mm behind the front surface of the rear sheet support means 7.

The described arrangement presents several novel aspects with regard to the actual feeding movement and its geometry. Thus, each pin 31 moves along a rectilinear path, while each pin 35 and thereby the rear edge of each link 33 describes an arcuate path 37. Consequently, the apex of each tooth 34 during its forward movement will also move upwardly, to the left in FIG. 2, which facilitates and enhances the engagement of the tooth with the rear edge of the carton sheet Since the plates 28, 29 are forwardly and downwardly inclined, movement of the sheet 4 towards the rollers 23, 24 beneath the stack 3 is facilitated, since the sheet 4 is thus freed from the stack resting with its rear portion on the table 9 and the friction between the sheets is greatly reduced.

The distance between the abutment surface on the front abutment 6 and the point of engagement 38 between the sheet and the rollers 23, 24 is so chosen that the sheet is passed from the tooth 34 to the rollers 23, 24 at that moment when the tooth moves at its highest speed in the direction of sheet movement. The sheet is released from the tooth by virtue of the fact that during the latter half of its movement the speed of the tooth is decreasing in the direction of sheet movement, while the rollers impart a constant speed to the sheet.

The transmission between the rollers 23, 24 and the tooth 34 is preferably chosen so that the speed at which the sheet is moving when passed to the rollers lies within the range of 70100 of the peripheral speed of the rollers.

In order that the feed of carton sheets to the machine can be interrupted, e.g. so that the machine can be emptied of carton sheets, the machine is provided with an arrangement for lifting the rear edge of the stack 3 out of engagement with the feed teeth.

This arrangement comprises trust rods 39 arranged between the feed teeth and the upper ends of which are provided with thrust plates 43 adapted to impose against the bottom of the stack 3. The lower ends of the trust rods 39 are connected with rocker arms 40 mounted on a shaft 41 which extends along the beam 11 and which rotates as shown by the arrow 42. The shaft 41 can either be rotated by means of a compressed air cylinder arrangement or manually. The shaft is preferably rotated, however, by means of a compressed air cylinder arrangement or similar means, since it is then possible to arrange a plurality of operating stations.

What is claimed is:

1. Apparatus for feeding one sheet of carton material at a time from a stack of such sheets to processing machinery having rotating feed rollers, comprising a table member provided with grooves, guide means movable in the grooves of said table, at least one feed means having a resilient element and reciprocally, movably mounted in said table to move the bottom sheet of the stack of such sheets to the feed rollers of the processing machinery to be grasped thereby, a shaft, at least one rocker arm mounted on said shaft for actuating said at least one feed means, at least one link element, said at least one feed means being mounted thereon, the forward end of said at least one link element being pivotally connected to said movable guide means and the rear end of said at least one link element being pivotally connected to said at least one rocker arm, forward abutment means adjacent the feed rollers and at the front of the stack of sheets, rear abutment means attached to said table member, means for movably adjusting said table member, feed means and rear abutment means to various distances from said forward abutment means to compensate for different sizes of sheets of carton material, each of said feed means being individually journalled in said table.

2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein said table member, said at least one feed means, said at least one rocker arm, and said shaft are connected to said rear abutment means to form a complete unit movable toward and away from the forward abutment means by said means for movably ad usting 

1. Apparatus for feedinG one sheet of carton material at a time from a stack of such sheets to processing machinery having rotating feed rollers, comprising a table member provided with grooves, guide means movable in the grooves of said table, at least one feed means having a resilient element and reciprocally, movably mounted in said table to move the bottom sheet of the stack of such sheets to the feed rollers of the processing machinery to be grasped thereby, a shaft, at least one rocker arm mounted on said shaft for actuating said at least one feed means, at least one link element, said at least one feed means being mounted thereon, the forward end of said at least one link element being pivotally connected to said movable guide means and the rear end of said at least one link element being pivotally connected to said at least one rocker arm, forward abutment means adjacent the feed rollers and at the front of the stack of sheets, rear abutment means attached to said table member, means for movably adjusting said table member, feed means and rear abutment means to various distances from said forward abutment means to compensate for different sizes of sheets of carton material, each of said feed means being individually journalled in said table.
 2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 wherein said table member, said at least one feed means, said at least one rocker arm, and said shaft are connected to said rear abutment means to form a complete unit movable toward and away from the forward abutment means by said means for movably adjusting said table member.
 3. Apparatus as claimed in claim 2 wherein the means for movably adjusting the complete unit comprises a screw element.
 4. Apparatus as claimed in claim 3 and further comprising an electric motor for driving said screw element and automatic braking means therefor. 